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Hazel Rose Summers has spent her entire life chasing perfection.
As one of Briar University's most promising ballet dancers, every spin, every performance, and every audition feels like it could determine the rest of her future. With the pressure of living up to her late mother's legacy, a demanding father who only seems to notice results, and secrets she's carried for years, Hazel has mastered one thing above all else: pretending she's fine.
Dean Di Laurentis has no interest in complicated.
The Briar hockey star is used to keeping things light-good friends, good parties, and never taking life too seriously. But when he finds himself spending more and more afternoons in a dance studio he has absolutely no reason to be in, one sharp-tongued ballerina starts becoming impossible to ignore.
What begins as sarcastic arguments and reluctant friendship slowly turns into something neither of them saw coming.
As Hazel prepares for the biggest audition of her life, old wounds begin resurfacing, forcing her to confront grief, expectations, and the fear that she will never be enough. And when the walls she's spent years building finally start to crack, Dean becomes the one person who refuses to walk away.
Set against the backdrop of Briar University, late-night practices, hockey parties, lakeside afternoons, and the delicate beauty of Swan Lake, White Feathers and Hockey Sticks is a slow-burn college romance about learning to let people in, finding strength in vulnerability, and discovering that sometimes the people worth keeping are the ones who stay.
Because perfection was never the answer.
But maybe love is.